Don't wanna say goodbye (I'll say goodnight)
by sharkinterviewee
Summary: Peter never stays for long after, but it's always like a chore for him- to get up and leave her bed, leave her side. There's a heaviness in his eyes, a flash of something unpleasant before it's replaced by his signature lightheartedness, and he makes her laugh as per their usual routine. It's a habit by now, one that Gamora's realizing they need to break. (soft starmora feelings)


**Starmora Week 2019**

**Day 1: Hello/Goodbye**

* * *

Gamora prefers having sex in her room. Taking him in her domain, so to speak. He never stays for very long after- not even half an hour. He's always gone before then. But it's like it's always a chore for him- to get up and leave her bed, leave her side. There's a heaviness in his eyes before he gets up and starts cracking jokes, making her laugh as he gets dressed so it's something light and warm at the ending of their nights, purposely doing something like an awkward hand wave and saying "see you around" when he's just being ridiculous, knowing they'll see each other face to face in a couple of hours at most. They live on the same small ship, after all. It's more like an inside joke, him leaving like that, grinning when he makes her laugh, or roll her eyes in that fond way of hers.

It's not like it's actually awkward. It's almost routine by now. This is just them.

But there are little things- little cues from him, that she has trouble picking up on. The heaviness in his eyes a few seconds before he pulls away from her, before it's replaced with that signature Peter Quill lightheartedness that he can call up whenever he needs to.

He is more… versed on personal interaction, and her less so on the intricacies of human nature. And Peter is very good at hiding things, hiding emotions, burying them deep down so they can't bother him, but little things slip through the cracks.

The heaviness in his eyes. The way the corner of his lips tug down before he smiles like he couldn't have a care in the world.

It's easier for Gamora to pick up on them when she's observing from afar, how skilled he is at being a social chameleon when it comes to marks on a job. The way he adapts- not just his mannerisms and speech patterns, but ways of expressing himself too.

It's easier to spot when he goes from standing with that sort of straight and yet still loose posture- relaxed in a way that shows he's not gearing up for a fight, but straight enough to not be insulting- and talking with a genial but formal address with 'high end clients' to turning around and laughing with someone he just met, slapping them on the back after a good joke with essentially a stranger, his whole personality becoming something like buddies shooting the breeze and ingratiating himself immediately with no trouble at all.

He's very good at changing the way he expresses himself, how he comes off, how he's perceived, in a way that's almost unnoticeable. Unless you know what you're looking for.

She didn't know she should be looking for something.

But Gamora picks up on it- eventually. That little flash of something that she can't quite recognize before everything becomes easy again, and Peter goes about making her laugh and leaving as per their usual routine.

After enough time she realizes it's a flash of something unpleasant, some unwanted feeling that he pushes away as quickly as possible. And once she spots it, she can't help but see it every time.

It takes her… longer than she would have liked to even piece this much together. Long enough that this routine is already habit, before she realizes that maybe there's something wrong with this habit, that there's been something wrong right from the start, that maybe it's a habit that they shouldn't have even started in the first place. That it's a habit they have to break.

* * *

"Do you always leave for me or for you?" Gamora asks, lying on her side, still naked in bed as she watched him get dressed.

Peter pauses- right in the middle of pulling up one of his pants leg to look up at her.

"Uh, what?" He asks, losing his balance momentarily, and hopping around a bit to regain it.

"Do you always leave for your comfortableness or mine?"

Peter really does freeze at that question, eyes widening in that almost frightened way. What was that saying he used? Like a deer caught in headlights. That's what he looked like now.

Peter finally gets a hold of himself after a couple of seconds of dumb staring, half heartedly yanking his pants the rest of the way up, realizing he looked like a fool before setting both feet back on the ground.

His first instinct is to make some stupid cocky joke. His second instinct is to deny, deny, deny. His third instinct is to lie.

But he looks at her- looks at the way she's regarding him, how there isn't anything critical or judgemental in Gamora's gaze, just an earnestness and softness to her eyes, an openness about her that still makes his heart feel funny when she looks at him like that for too long.

And he realizes she's trying, she's really trying. Neither of them are too good at this whole romantic relationship thing. They're just kinda figuring things out and working with what they've got as they go along. But she's trying, and he needs to try too.

Peter's lips part, but he doesn't end up saying anything. He's silent for a long while, crossing his arms over his bare chest and settling into his stance.

Gamora doesn't prompt him further, or say anything at all either.

She recognizes it for what it is- the defensive body language, the tightness of his jaw, how tense everything is about him, and how he's utterly silent right now. How he doesn't say a word.

This, she recognizes. So she waits.

He's working something out in his head, something hard. She also realizes that a lot of what he does isn't intentional- the pushing away painful aspects of something, hiding it away so he doesn't have to think on it, doesn't have to process it. Doesn't have to hurt over it.

The truth is that Gamora does the same. She thinks everybody does, to a point.

It's easier to see from afar though.

So she waits. Let's him work out everything in his head, process some of it in the silence. She waits.

Peter stands there in silence for… a long while. Realistically it may have been only 15 minutes, of Peter just standing there, his jaw rhythmically clenching and unclenching.

It doesn't sound like that long of a time until you realize that just a few seconds of utter silence feels like an eternity, and this is from Peter Quill, who always talks just to fill the void even when he has nothing to say.

You think 30 seconds is an awkward silence? Try 15 minutes filled with _this _tension.

Apparently it's a lot to work through.

Still, she waits.

Peter's expression is hardened, staring low down at the wall- not at the floor, but definitely not at her.

His jaw tenses again and he swallows, shifting on his feet. "I don't want you to have to ask me to leave."

It's the most honest thing he can say right now.

The truth is, he doesn't want to hear her say it. He doesn't want to hear Gamora asking him to go, so he just… makes sure to leave before he overstays his welcome.

He knows- it's not like this is something casual. This is something serious, and real, for the both of them- they've made that pretty clear.

But Gamora is her on personal space, so… he just wants to go, before she has to ask him to.

If she needs personal space after they've been so close and intimate- like that makes sense, he gets that, he understands why she needs that.

So he just, does it, because he really can't handle it if she has to say it out loud, has to ask him to go. Peter really can't handle those words, not from her. Her telling him to go. That's why. He has to leave before that can happen. He just has to.

Gamora is… careful, choosing her words. Her heart hurts just looking at him, hearing that from him. So her response isn't something she takes lightly.

"And if I never ask you to leave?"

Peter looks up at her again, his eyes searching for something. He lets out a deep breath, and the look on his face makes her want to hold him close. The corners of his mouth tug down, lips quivering before he bites the inside of them, as if he couldn't look any more vulnerable.

Peter lets out a deep, unsteady breath. "I'd lay next to you for hours if you let me. Not with you. Just next to you."

If it's possible, Gamora's expression softens even more. It was already heart trendingly soft before the words were out of his mouth, but after… it's something else that he doesn't even have the words to describe. He wants her to never stop looking at him like that.

"Come back to bed, Peter."

He hesitates, only for a moment.

The space next to her is so inviting, and he never really wanted to be leaving in the first place.

He still is looking- vulnerable, so after easing back onto the bed, Gamora runs her hand through his hair, gentle and loving. Peter sighs. The tightness he was carrying in his shoulders starts to disappear, slowly but surely.

His eyes flutter to a close, and this time the silence is nice and warm, comforting as she soothes all the insecurity from him.

When he opens them back up, Gamora's looking at him with something that makes his throat feel thick, in a good way.

He offers her a light smile that Gamora returns wholeheartedly, and then some.

"Now take your pants back off," she says suddenly. "I'm gonna feel weird if I'm the only one sleeping naked, and I definitely don't feel like getting dressed."

Peter laughs. It's a little hoarse, but not forced.

He has a feeling she did it on purpose. Saying all that, saying _specifically _that, so he'd know he was staying the night in no uncertain terms. They've never fallen asleep beside each other, not like this. Sure, back when they were friends, maybe a couple of times when one of them had a really bad nightmare, the kind that woke them up with screams and made them terrified to go back to sleep, even if they'd never admit it. They've been exhausted and fallen asleep together on the couch more than a couple times too. But they've never like had sex, and after sex cuddles, and then fallen asleep in the same bed before. He's fairly certain that the goal of that statement wasn't to make him laugh, but to make sure he knew that was the plan, tonight.

Soon, Peter's kicked off his pants (good riddance, she thinks), and Gamora pulls him back into her arms again (where he should always be).

"I'd really like it better if you stayed," Gamora murmurs, his face buried in her neck as she strokes his hair. Peter nods.

And that's really all she can ask of him.

To stay with her. She didn't really have to ask. That's all he wanted to do in the first place. Be close to her.

Yeah, they were still figuring this thing out. But that wasn't a bad thing.

They were good for each other.

Perfect. Just perfect.

* * *

**AN: Haha, forgot to post this over here. AO3 lets you use 1250 characters for a summary, so sometimes I'm just like 'I'll figure out a way to condense a summary into 384 characters" and then just never do.**

**Title from the song _Goodbye Goodnight_ by Wild Child.**


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